Spiritual Teachers’ Transgressions — and What We Can Do About Them

This summer and fall, American Zen communities have been abuzz with talk of Eido Shimano, the abbot of the New York Zen Studies Society, whose record of sexual transgressions spans more than 45 years. The buzz was loud enough to attract the mainstream media; on August 20, The New York Times ran a substantial article on Shimano’s sexual misconduct and the widespread suffering that follows in its wake.

Yet Eido was not a charlatan. Like many spiritual teachers who sexually transgress, he offered his students a great deal of genuine wisdom and useful guidance. This fact can seem counterintuitive, illogical, bewildering, and even tragic—yet spiritual teachers have proven it true for many centuries. We students ask ourselves, over and over: How can a spiritual teacher be so wise and yet so foolish, so generous and yet so acquisitive, and so loving and yet so self-centered?

If we are serious about making our spiritual relationships and communities safer, we need to stop looking for satisfying explanations to this question. We would be wiser to instead accept and deal with the reality behind it. Whether we like it or not, many spiritual teachers are both wise and foolish; many are both generous and acquisitive; many are both loving and self-centered. In fact, a small number of exceptionally insightful and inspiring spiritual teachers have been sociopaths, clinical narcissists, and/or sex addicts.

Our failure to see and accept this is our limitation, our delusion—and the more we continue to live by it, the more we enable exploitation and abuse.

We need to accept—in our hearts, minds, and guts—these painful but essential truths:

Spiritual teachers—no matter how enlightened (or deluded)—are human beings, with the same physical, mental, and emotional equipment as the rest of us. Indeed, if they weren’t, how could we possibly follow in their footsteps and what could they really teach us? When we accept that our teachers are fundamentally just like us, we give ourselves a huge gift: we accept in ourselves the potential to embody the same wisdom, compassion, and spirit of service that we value in them.

Spiritual teachers—no matter how enlightened—make some mistakes and misjudgments. From the viewpoint of The Absolute, we can say that there are no accidents, or that the very concept of “mistake” is a mental construct. Fair enough. But on the relative level—the level on which it’s true to say “Look both ways before crossing the street or you might get run over”—spiritual teachers can and do err.

Spiritual teachers are susceptible to temptation, sexual and otherwise. Many can resist it far better, and for far longer, than most of us—and many are able to see it coming well in advance. But spiritual teachers are also exposed to far greater—and far more frequent—temptations than most of us.

Many spiritual teachers are sexy. Some are extremely sexy. The same is true of some of their students. This is an essential—if obvious—part of the mix, yet few discussions of the topic acknowledge it.

One way to look at—and accept—spiritual teachers’ often-contradictory natures is to understand that they simply reflect the nature of the human heart, which often operates in utterly contradictory ways. Think of the tough-as-nails corporate raider who melts in the presence of a friendly animal, or the social worker who selflessly supports and fights for their clients, but neglects their own family. Spiritual teachers are no different, for they are human beings with human hearts. We are no different, either, and need to accept these same contradictions in ourselves. Indeed, often our inability to accept fundamental contradictions in others stems from our unwillingness to accept those same kinds of contradictions in our own hearts, minds, and guts.

It’s also true that each of us develops along multiple lines—and this development is never equal along all lines. Some of us develop great intellectual powers but little intuition. Some become geniuses in music or art or math or basketball, but can’t write a cogent paragraph. Some can give rousing and mesmerizing speeches but are inept at small talk. Some have huge, open hearts, but no clue as to how to run a PowerPoint slide show—or, for that matter, a spiritual institution. And some can have great insight into the nature of existence, yet may be short on empathy, common sense, basic social skills, or the ability to clearly envision the potential consequences of their actions.

Nevertheless, some of us imagine that our spiritual teachers are less complex or more consistent than other folks. Some of us even imagine that our teachers are more (or better) than human.

We need to stop imagining all of this, because these delusions get us into big trouble. They also harm our spiritual teachers, by encouraging them to join us in those delusions.

Some of us also believe that spiritual insight can somehow prevent or cure all psychological (and even physical) ills, including those that have neurological or biological roots. In real life, though, spiritual teachers can and do experience addictions, mental illnesses, personality disorders, Alzheimer’s, dementia, ulcers, cancer, and pretty much everything else. Furthermore, spiritual insight does not somehow destroy all of a teacher’s neuroses, moral blind spots, goofy ideas, and difficult temptations. (However, the wisest teachers have relatively few of these, are aware of most of the ones they do have, freely admit to them, and take care to adjust for them as necessary.)

Hard as it is for some of us to admit that our teachers have normal human limitations, it’s harder still to accept that they may have addictions, compulsions, depression, or stress-related illnesses. Yet it’s essential that we (and our teachers) do admit it. Otherwise, we are in denial, and we become enablers, part of sick teachers’ addictive systems.

We would be wise to observe what a teacher says and does over a long period of time—months or years—and ask ourselves this essential question: Does their behavior follow and uphold the essential principles of human connection, compassion, and service? And if anything the teacher does seems amiss, we can also ask: Would I accept these actions from my doctor or dry cleaner? Would the police and courts accept them from my doctor or dry cleaner?

If we don’t scrutinize what a teacher says and does, or if we fail to exercise our own good judgment, we don’t just harm ourselves; we also harm the teacher, by encouraging their arrogance, narcissism, or delusion. As John Kain writes in A Rare and Precious Thing: The Possibilities and Pitfalls of Working with a Spiritual Teacher, “Being in the teacher role is a powerful position, and, like heroin, such power can be addictive. As students, we often fuel this addiction by giving over our power to the teacher; we become enablers, co-conspirators.” Perhaps most tragic of all, we may deprive ourselves of the wisdom, guidance, and spiritual intimacy that an authentic, loving teacher can offer us.

About Scott Edelstein

Scott Edelstein is a widely published writer, ghostwriter, collaborator, writing and publishing consultant, and literary agent. He has also been a book, magazine, and newspaper editor; a newspaper and magazine journalist; and a freelance writer for many businesses, nonprofits, and government organizations. Over the past 40 years, Scott has published 15 books and over 150 short pieces. His newest book, Sex and the Spiritual Teacher, was published in 2011 by Wisdom Publications.

“If we don’t scrutinize what a teacher says and does, or if we fail to exercise our own good judgment, we don’t just harm ourselves; we also harm the teacher, by encouraging their arrogance, narcissism, or delusion.” Now if somebody can just tell Genpo that.

Interesting article, aimed straight at students who need to hear it. But you know what I’d really like to see? Something addressed to the boards, the high-ranking X or Y Zen Center members who cover this stuff up as long as they possibly can. They are the ones with the most power to make changes . . . perhaps the book will have something on that. I hope so.

Thanks! Scott, for this article, insightful and helpful. I sent it to a number of my Zen teacher friends. How wonderful that you are writing a book on it. Your years of practice are evident, your tone calm and balanced.

As an emerging teacher I deeply appreciate that this conversation is out on the table with such wisdom and spaciousness. It really helps me and the people I’m working with. Thank you to Scott for being a part of that healthy movement.

Note also that the Soto Zen Buddhist Association is in the process of adopting ethical guidelines as have many Zen centers for themselves. A guidelines document is of course just a piece of paper but the conversation that goes into creating it is very helpful. And, one hopes, such guidelines are established including processes to keep them alive and present in the community.

I’ll confirm whether the SZBA guidelines are final and see if we can post them on Sweeping Zen.

A last point is it’s come up as important for teachers established and new alike to be in contact with their peers. This is coming up with my peers and myself as a critical piece. To check my heart in such a conversations with people I trust and see if there’s anything I’m hiding. If so there’s probably the beginnings of problem and it can be worked with before something harmful happens.

You have completely failed to address the vital issues of coercion and abuse which lie at the heart of this story. But what is of more concern are the dangerous implications of many of your lines of argument.

You say: “Whether we like it or not, many spiritual teachers are both wise and foolish; many are both generous and acquisitive; many are both loving and self-centered. In fact, a small number of exceptionally insightful and inspiring spiritual teachers have been sociopaths, clinical narcissists, and/or sex addicts.” – WTF??????

I cannot believe you made such a malignant statement. Have you actually studied what a sociopath is?? It’s actually defined by a *lack* of insight. You have spent most of this article excusing lies and hypocrisy (which you call “operating in contraditory ways” – really you need to get a job as a political press secretary) as excusable on the grounds that someone is a good and clever speaker. Well so was Jim Jones. Just because someone can take the teachings of the enlightened, and reinterate them eloquently and powerfully, does not mean they themselves have taken them to heart, or ever wished to. You need to acknowledge that for some it is just a means to an end and the end is power over others.

You say that we should be more understanding of the complexity of the situation. Ironically, for a Buddhist, you are failing to see the simplicity of the case. Some individuals just enjoy the manipulation of others and if they can do this by using the language of love and understanding the game becomes even more fun for them. And you’re in a serious case of denial yourself if you don’t recognise that religious institutions of all kinds are a magnet for these types.

To suggest, as you do that a great spiritual teacher can lack empathy is equally astounding to me. Teaching can never be a one-way relationship, that’s about the most obvious statement one can make, so to suggest that you can have a *spiritual* teacher who is not aware of their students needs and reactions and the *appropriate* response to them is mind-boggling. I can clearly see that you can be an effective and knowledgeable artist or writer without empathy, but seriously, how can you be a functional teacher without empathy? And most especially a spiritual teacher? Will we be seeing a Zen Robot Master series some time soon?

You say that one shouldn’t expect spiritual teachers to be any different from anyone else. Well sorry, but most people do not abuse the trust of people in their charge, so I don’t think it’s a particularly high expectation. And this argument clearly ignores the main reason why the bulk of young and vulnerable people seek out these leaders. They do expect a higher level of understanding and a higher level of conduct. Duh. I’d have thought that went without saying. To expect this to change is to live in cloud-cuckoo land, and essentially this would make teachers redundant anyway – just give the kids a book list and they can work it out for themselves, since they’re just like their teachers anyway. So to put the responsibility of vetting spirtual teachers onto these naive and eager novices is just a callous cop-out. But your comment about “sexy” students is a paticularly heinous and dangerous path to tread upon, inevitably leading to, “well she asked for it, didn’t she…”

I do not know all the details of this case (which are hard to find a synopsis of on Google interestingly) but from reading your piece it seems to me the fairly standard line of damage management. The accusations are ignored and trivialised and all are encouraged to sympathise with the pressures of authority. With articles like this, I can only imagine that we’ll be seeing a lot more of these cases cropping up in the future. Once again I feel legitimized in my avoidance of any organized religion.

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About Scott Edelstein

Scott Edelstein is a widely published writer, ghostwriter, collaborator, writing and publishing consultant, and literary agent. He has also been a book, magazine, and newspaper editor; a newspaper and magazine journalist; and a freelance writer for many businesses, nonprofits, and government organizations. Over the past 40 years, Scott has published 15 books and over 150 short pieces. His newest book, Sex and the Spiritual Teacher, was published in 2011 by Wisdom Publications.

About Sweeping Zen

Established in 2009 as a grassroots initiative, Sweeping Zen is a digital archive of information on Zen Buddhism. Featuring in-depth interviews, an extensive database of biographies, news, articles, podcasts, teacher blogs, events, directories and more, this site is dedicated to offering the public a range of views in the sphere of Zen Buddhist thought. We are also endeavoring to continue creating lineage charts for all Western Zen lines, doing our own small part in advancing historical documentation on this fabulous import of an ancient tradition. Come on in with a tea or coffee. You're always bound to find something new.

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